


I crossed the world (you crossed my heart)

by SinBin



Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, OT3, Parker talks about her feelings, Supernatural AU - Freeform, but has elected to ignore them, the author knows the rules of the english language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 07:41:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5959186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SinBin/pseuds/SinBin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where people are Human or Other or some combination of the two, Parker has always been undefinable. It doesn't bother her much and she doesn't talk about it.<br/>But when a job puts them into contact with a company that specializes in turning kids from one group to the other, the team is left emotionally drained and Parker may find out that talking doesn't just help her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I crossed the world (you crossed my heart)

Parker's not sure what she is. Or maybe she's not sure what everyone else is. There are insides and outsides and sometimes she gets confused about how those things are connected or if they're connected at all.

She thinks she might like to be like Sophie. Sophie can switch between Other and Human like breathing. She laughs while she does it, ears pointing and rounding, teeth sharpening and dulling from one breath to the next. She is beautiful and fierce and everything.

Parker loves Sophie but she knows that she is not like the older woman, no matter what she wants.

Parker never wants to be like Nate even though she loves him too. He's lost so many pieces of himself over the years that his Otherness and his Humanness are all mixed together, a pointed ear, a patch of green scales, a slit pupil all opposite a rounded ear, smooth skin.

He's thinks like both at once, he can see everything the world throws out in nanoseconds, doesn't have to convince a lizard brain to follow the laws of man. Parker wishes she knew what was going on like he does but know that the cost is too steep for the likes of her.

She wants to crawl inside of Hardison, that's how much she loves him. He is so very Human except inside his head where he is so complex he might as well be Other. He is the compassion she had given up on years ago, the Heart she'd thought removed from her Life.

When Hardison smiles, his teeth are blunt and white. They stand out against his beautiful dark skin and when he turns that smile on her she feels Human too, with quick heartbeats and flushed cheeks.

Eliot she loves like the secret parts of herself that even Nate can't see. He's Other unrepentantly, armor worn under clothes and wings held proudly out behind him. He's a mountain where other people are wind and he does not bow. He's the type who keeps perspective, who can see the line between Human and Other and dismisses it.

Parker would love to be so sure of herself, to be so strong that she doesn't need to watch for other people, only watch out for the people she cares about.

She wishes she could be beautiful like any of these impossible people she has in her life. Beautiful like Sophie, ever-changing and laughing. Beautiful like Nate, broken and put back together into something unique. Beautiful like Hardison, light and joy and intelligence. Beautiful like Eliot, undiscriminating and righteous and proud.

She doesn't know what she is but she knows where she lost sight of that. It's a secret she's carried with her since she was a little girl and it makes no sense that she wants to talk about it now.

Only-- they all fit together and they just almost died and they're trying to stop up all the cracks that come from bad decisions and last minute rescues. Sophie is at the bar with Nate, dove soft feathers brushing against the rough scales at the back of his neck. Eliot is staring into his beer and his steel wings are scraping against the floor. Hardison is leaning back against the booth, vulnerable human throat working as he stares at the ceiling, tears stubbornly clinging to his lashes.

She knows it won't fix the little girl who lost to her Otherness or the parents who pushed and pushed and pushed until she broke. She knows it won't stop the burning feeling they've all had since finding out about the Recalibration program, the broken children who'd fallen victim to it.

But this is the closest they've come to seeing something she has understood since she filled her childhood home with gas and lit the match. She wants to slip herself into the cracks they're healing, let her essence reside in the scar of the wound.

"My dad," she says and falters because the silence in the bar is suddenly overwhelming, after hours and closed. She clears her throat and doesn't make eye contact,  face stoic. "My dad wasn't Other."

Hardison is looking at her now, she can tell, and so is Eliot. They're different, of course they are, Hardison is waiting for her to continue with bated breath and tension. Eliot is still, like a stone, peaceful and calm.

Sophie is turned on the barstool and she looks like an angel with her feathers under the neon lights. Nate looks like a work of art, surreal and textured.

Parker breathes through her nose. "My dad wasn't Other," she repeats. She glances at Hardison, Eliot and focuses back on the wall. "It's funny," she says, "how unfair I used to think it was. That he was a monster but didn't look like one."

She knows they know what she means. She doesn't worry about offending them. That more than anything is what makes her keep going.

"I wasn't always like...like this," she manages. "I-- I was different.  But my mom wasn't Other either and they had me and they wanted me to be Other. Then they wanted me to be Human. Other. Human. Other. People can't be two things," she adds unnecessarily. Her fist tightens under the table. "They can't."

"I know," Hardison says and he puts his hand on the table between them, palm up. She thinks she's supposed to take it delicately, afraid, but Parker has never had time for that. She grabs his hand with too much strength and stares at their entwined fingers until his skin color begins to bleed into hers.

"What are you trying to say, darlin'?" Eliot asks gently. Prodding because he can feel the force of her gaze and knows she needs the push. Under the table, he hooks an ankle around hers.

"Those kids," she says and firms her jaw against the trembling she feels coming. "They're going to be okay." She nods fast, decisively. "Yeah, they're going to be okay."

"How do you know that?" Nate asks. Once, a long time ago, he might have said it aggressively, might have let the forked tongue in his mouth flick out in warning. Now he says it devoid of emotion, waiting for an explanation.

Parker hopes it's one he can accept because she knows it's the only one she can give.

"Because I'm okay," she says. "I wasn't for a long time but I am now because I have the team. I have a Sophie and a Nate. I have a Hardison and an Eliot." She uses her free hand to dash at her eyes, frustrated with the moisture there. "Maybe they won't ever know what they are. Other. Human. Other. But they'll know who they are. They'll have people, one day, who'll know who they are. And that's--" her voice cracks "-- that's more important. I think."

"It is," Sophie says. When Parker looks at her, there is something soft and fierce in Sophie's eyes and something even a little proud. "You're right, Parker, it is."

Nate nods once, jerky and his eyes don't leave Parker. He gets up without saying anything but she can see that there's less tension in his shoulders, an almost relieved air in the way he limps upstairs.

Sophie swoops by their table, kisses Parker on the forehead, and flutters upstairs after him. Where her lips touched, there's warmth, and Parker lets that warmth comfort her as she waits for Hardison and Eliot to say something.

Eliot pulls away first and her ankles feels cold but no colder than her hand when Hardison slips his fingers from her. Her face heats and the emotion leaves her trembling as they both get out of the booth across from her, stand up and away from her.

She's thinking that she said something wrong, that despite Nate's relief and Sophie's kiss she shouldn't have shared. She's thinking that it might have been better to never let them know she's--

Rough hands pull her from her seat, hold her in the air like a child for a brief moment. Then she's surrounded by warmth as her boys surround her, arms and wings so thick that the bar disappears from her view until she only knows them.

The sound that leaves her throat is one of coming home and their embrace tightens in response.

"You'll always have us, Parker," Hardison promises into her hair. "And we know exactly who you are."

Eliot's feathers brush against her face, a silent agreement that he backs up with a soft hum.

Parker holds onto them as tightly as she can and maybe feels a little beautiful after all.


End file.
